There was a time when the NCAA rarely held a Final Four without ACC representation.

Now, with the noticeable slippage in the league's quality of play more evident by the season, there's barely a spot for the conference in the Sweet 16.

A dismal first week for the once-proud basketball power saw five of the six teams eliminated, with only regular-season champion and No. 1 East Region seed Virginia strong enough to play two straight games without losing.

From 1980-2010, the ACC had a school in the Final Four 24 times in 30 seasons.

In five of those seasons two teams reached the final weekend of play, giving the league 29 spots in those 30 years.

But that is history in more than just years passed.

Duke's national championship run in 2010 was the last time an ACC program reached the Final Four - the first time since the tourney expanded to 64 teams in 1985 that the conference has gone three consecutive years without a representative.

During the glorious decades of 1980-2010, only once did the league go even two years in a row (2006-07) without a Final Four school.

The 6-5 record in NCAA play this postseason is consistent with the mediocre showings of the previous two years - 6-4 last season and 6-5 in 2012, with only two of nine teams getting as far as the Elite Eight (North Carolina in '12, Duke last season).

With the Blue Devils and Tar Heels leading the way, at least one of the state's Big Four schools (that also includes N.C. State and Wake Forest) reached the Sweet 16 every year from 1980 through last season.

But with Duke losing its first game and UNC and N.C. State also falling early, this season marks the first time in 35 years no Big Four schools got to the second week of play.

The Blue Devils are 5-4 in the NCAAs in the last four seasons and have lost their first game twice, to a 15 seed (Lehigh) and a 14 (Mercer).

The Tar Heels have fared better - 8-4 in that same time span - but this marks the second straight year the program lost in the Round of 32.

Declining powers?

Sure looks that way, at least in March.

Prominent programs like Syracuse and Pittsburgh were supposed to helped upgrade the falling ACC, but both bowed out in their second game, the third-seeded Orange ending a season closing skid of seven losses in nine games by falling to No. 10 Dayton.

With Virginia the last ACC team standing, the league ranks a pitiful sixth (and last) among the power conferences in Sweet 16 schools - the SEC, Pac 12 and Big 12 have three each, with the American Athletic Big 10 landing two teams each.

That leaves the ACC tied with the Atlantic 10 (Dayton) and Mountain West (San Diego State) at the bottom.

The ACC still leads all conferences in most NCAA tournament categories, including wins (264), winning percentage (.661), and appearances in the Sweet 16 (73), Regional Final (39) and Final Four (24).

But those are statistics built over decades of excellence, not from more recent numbers that offer proof of a conference heading north geographically but far south in performance.

This the opinion of senior writer Keith Jarrett. Contact him at 232-5867 or kjarrett@citizen-times.com.